How’s the local weather forecast looking this weekend? Why not 3D print your own micro flying wing to soar beyond the kites and frisbees at the park. Designed by Thingiverse user drcameron, this RC wing attachment will have you soaring through blue skies with style.
With projects like OpenRC taking the 3D printing community by storm, we’re seeing more and more examples of how this technology can be used to create and upgrade remote-controlled vehicles. And it’s no surprise why makers are fawning over these types of projects; they’re fun, functional and showcase the potential that even desktop 3D printing has for manufacturing useful things.
And so, for today’s Weekend Project, we’ll be taking a look at a 3D printed V911 Micro Flying Wing. Designed by Thingiverse user drcameron, his project was recently featured on the front page of the popular 3D model repository. Using a few various parts from an old RC plane, you can add these 3D printed wings and take flight. The ribbed wing design has already been tried and tested by the designer, and it proved to be a soaring success.
Let’s take a quick look at what you need to make your own high-flying RC plane.
3D Printed Micro Flying Wing: What You Need
The STL files for the wings are freely available on Thingiverse. You can download them here. Other than that, here are the components you need to put this project into the air.
Of course, if you have some RC plane parts laying around the garage, you might be able to source these components for this project. Otherwise, you can either find the individual parts above or buy an old plane and obtain what you need from there.
3D Printed Micro Flying Wing: Putting it Together
The 3D printing process is quite easy, as the wings come in two separate parts and snap directly together. It might take some angling on your slicer in order to fit the model on your 3D printer’s bed, but the project creator was able to print it on a Monoprice Maker Select V2, which has a build volume of 200 x 200 x 180 mm. The teacher and maker also scaled down this model of a control horn by 75 percent, making it the perfect fit for the micro wings.
The wings were printed with two walls and zero top and bottom layers. Using Cura, drcameron used the grid pattern to create the lightweight inner structure. He also notes that both wings should be oriented the same way to ensure that the grid pattern is uniform across both prints.
After the printing process is complete, you should wrap the wings in packing tape and add foam to the tips of the winglets. He then attached the receiver brick and motor using hot glue. Although the maker doesn’t go into the electronics assembly in his Thingiverse post, he does share a link to this forum for those unfamiliar with this process.
All in all, this is a great project to show everyone just why 3D printing is so useful, and for parents looking to introduce a bit of maker ingenuity to their children. You can play around and customize this project to fit your style, and become the most popular person at the park once you start flying this RC plane around.
Website: LINK
